Blog Monetization: Soup to Nuts

Stephan Spencer,

Founder & President, Netconcepts

Monetization Options

• Google AdSense • Yahoo Publisher Network • SearchFeed • Kontera • ClickBank • LookSmart • LookQuick • PeakClick • Affiliate Programs • Text link ad brokers (e.g. Text-Link-Ads.com, LinkExperts) • Chitika • Swickis (Eurekster) • Video ads (Revver) • RSS feed ads (e.g. Pheedo) • Donations / tip jar • Information products • Email newsletter advertising • Banner ads • Pay per lead programs (e.g. ModernClick, Copeac, Pay-Per-Lead Power Ads System) • XY7 • CPAEmpire • Azoogle Ads • etc. etc.

• Your mileage will vary. What works for some may not work for you.

Most Common Ways to Monetize

• Affiliate links

• Google AdSense / Yahoo Publisher Network

• Advertising / sponsorships– Text links– Banners

• Donations / “Tip Jar”

• Direct sales (hard products, information products)

Affiliate Links

• Affiliate networks like Commission Junction offer hundreds of merchants

• Datafeeds are best (e.g. cardoffers.com)

• Some of the smaller networks can provide better offers with higher payouts than CJ (e.g. CX Digital, neverblueads)

What Are the Levers?

• Turn the dial up on…– traffic (through SEO & SEM)– clickthrough rate on the ads– ad prices– number of ad units (AdSense allows 3, and 1 link

unit)– venues (videos, RSS feeds, emails, etc.)

• Content based ads and search ads

Don’t Make It Look Like an Ad

• Text ads good; image ads bad

• Which ad formats work best?– Good: Leaderboard, large rectangle, wide skyscraper– Bad: 468x60 banner– Experiment because it varies for each site

• No border

• Match your site’s background, font color, link color

• Make use of the Link Unit too

Attract better ads

• Make the ads more relevant– Use Section Targeting <!-- google_ad_section_start --> <!--

google_ad_section_end -->– Ignore reader comments and navigation <!--

google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) --> <!-- google_ad_section_end -->

• Target more expensive keywords– Check bids and revise content accordingly – e.g. house painting vs.

home improvement

• Put competitors and low CTR advertisers on your block list• Dispense with Flash-based or graphics-rich approach.

Content!• Keywords! in URL, H1 tag, body copy, title tag, etc.

Optimize Placement

• Where are your visitors most likely to look? https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html

• Use a heat map clickthrough tool like CrazyEgg to see where people tend to click

• Definitely “above the fold” is best• Wrap content around it• Place near the search box, a “Submit” button,

or other things that get looked at a lot

Public Service Ads

• For when there isn’t a good paying ad to display

• You can choose to display your own house ads instead– Google Backfill (allfeeds.com)– Google AdSense Plus (googleadsenseplus.com)

Not All Visitors Are Created Equal

• Crank up the ads for…– Lookie-loos who aren’t converting– Overseas visitors who aren’t your target audience

Channels

• Up to 200 allowed

• Group ads by format, by keyword, by location on the page, etc.

• Two types– URL channels– Custom channels

What’s Going Too Far

• Ads adjacent to images

• Wrapping keywords or small bits of text within google_ad_section tags

AdSense + YPN?

• “publishers may now display other contextual ads on the same site or page as Google ads as long as they don’t have the same look and feel as our ads” -- Brian Axe of Google

YPN Optimization

• http://ypnblog.com/blog/2007/01/03/optimizing-for-relevancy-part-i/

• http://ypnblog.com/blog/2007/01/11/the-robot-ate-my-web-page…/

• http://ypnblog.com/blog/2007/02/27/optimizing-for-relevancy-part-iii/

Making Money While You Sleep

• It’s child’s play!

• If a 15 year old (now 17) cando it, why not you too?

• Case in point: NeopetsFanatic

• Passive income: ~$1000/mo.from Google AdSense

• Effort required: 1 hr/month

• Thank you, Google! My daughter,SEO-in-training

More Examples…

• Innsite.com

• Writers.net

• Lockergnome.com

Thank You!

• For a 60 minute screencast on how to optimize your blog, drop me your business card or e-mail your request to seo@netconcepts.com

• To contact me: stephan@netconcepts.com